And it was said, Let there be light. These 10 winners added: Let it be sustainable. This year we salute the brightest ideas in energy

For both designing and deploying a solar-powered bag that has illuminated the lives of thousands of energy-deprived people

In 2005, architect Sheila Kennedy, traveling in a remote part of Mexico, saw how people who had no electricity could not work or study when the sun went down. In an aha moment, she went home to Boston and designed a bag that was both a light and power source, with a 13" x 4.75" flexible solar panel, rechargeable batteries, an HBLED light, and a USB port. Since then, her Portable Light Project, as she called it, has transformed lives in places defined by what she calls "energy poverty." This month, Kennedy and her firm, KVA MATx, worked with top designers to create the eight ELLE/Portable Light Project bags you see here. "It's important for design to produce ideas that allow us to reflect on our culture—to make the case for clean energy through objects and works of architecture that can be beautiful and influential," Kennedy says of this collaboration. She works with nonprofits in Africa, Central America, and Haiti.

ELLE Gold Awards 2010

ELLE Gold Awards 2010

For making mainstream Americans think about the environment, and environmentalists rethink the delivery of their message

"You picked the wrong day to mess with the ecosystem, plastic boy," growls a member of the "Green Police" in Audi's Super Bowl commercial for its "clean diesel" A3 TDI hatchback. The spoofing spot irked many ecorati. But as Grist columnist David Roberts wrote, "It's an appeal to a new and growing demographic that isn't hard-core environmentalist—and doesn't particularly like hard-core environmentalists—but that basically wants to do the right thing." It was also a 60-second lesson in the power of humor to change perception.